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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    BQE CORE

    Score8.8 out of 10
    Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
    BQE CORE is a business management solution built specifically for professional service firms. BQE CORE is a combination of a billing assistant, project management, and accounting solution. CORE is designed to do the hard work of delivering actionable insights directly to the user's dashboards or inbox. BQE CORE replaces the products Engineeroffice, Archioffice, and BillQuick; the functionality of these applications is now found in BQE CORE.N/A

    QuickBooks Online

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AQuickBooks Online is a SaaS version of the QuickBooks product. It contains all of the features found in the local version. Higher-priced plans include greater automation, payment management, inventory and time tracking, and analytics features.

    $38

    per month

    Pricing
    BQE COREQuickBooks Online
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Simple Start
    $38
    per month
    Essentials
    $75
    per month
    Plus
    $115
    per month
    Advanced
    $275
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BQE COREQuickBooks Online
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    BQE COREQuickBooks Online
    Considered Both Products
    BQE Software Inc.
    Chose BQE CORE
    I have not used other systems.
    Incentivized
    Chose BQE CORE
    I think BQE CORE is far superior
    Incentivized
    Chose BQE CORE
    N/A
    Incentivized
    Chose BQE CORE
    We previously only used QBO for our ledger and reports, the invoicing features were not easy to use and there wasn't a project management aspect.
    Incentivized
    Chose BQE CORE
    Still using QBO - integrated with BQE Core - may eventually cross over to everything being done on CORE. Integration is not the easiest.n I know there are billing programs that are set up to communicate back and forth with Quickbooks.
    Incentivized
    Chose BQE CORE
    Core is an all-inclusive package that produces results quickly. Easy to learn and a breeze to use. It even has the ability to interface with other software.
    Incentivized
    Chose BQE CORE
    Although QB has a project component, it only provides basic cross-referencing and is not nearly as sophisticated in its ability to create relevant reports for use in identifying KPIs. It also does not have the ability to create phased project invoices without a manual entry …
    Incentivized
    Chose BQE CORE
    Both are good programs, but for us, BQE Core had the edge as we had already been using ArchiOffice, so we were already familiar with how the system worked and were able to transfer over old data.
    Incentivized
    Chose BQE CORE
    We paid for BigTime and started to implement it so we could have one package with accounting as well. BQE Core didn't have the online payment selection and we had trouble years ago with integrating with QuickBooks. In trying to set up BigTime, the migration of previous and …
    Incentivized
    Intuit
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    144 Answers
    83%
    Would buy again
    129 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    106 Answers
    87%
    Delivers good value for the price
    124 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    150 Answers
    83%
    Happy with the feature set
    129 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    70 Answers
    82%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    82%
    Implementation went as expected
    81 Answers
    85%
    Implementation went as expected
    117 Answers
    Features
    BQE COREQuickBooks Online
    Payroll Management
    Comparison of Payroll Management features of BQE CORE and QuickBooks Online
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    QuickBooks Online
    7.7
    125 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Pay calculation00 Ratings8.0114 Ratings
    Benefit plan administration00 Ratings6.962 Ratings
    Direct deposit files00 Ratings8.1105 Ratings
    Salary revision and increment management00 Ratings7.778 Ratings
    Reimbursement management00 Ratings7.784 Ratings
    Customization
    Comparison of Customization features of BQE CORE and QuickBooks Online
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    QuickBooks Online
    7.0
    116 Ratings
    8% below category average
    API for custom integration00 Ratings6.996 Ratings
    Plug-ins00 Ratings7.198 Ratings
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of BQE CORE and QuickBooks Online
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    QuickBooks Online
    8.2
    191 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Single sign-on capability00 Ratings8.3156 Ratings
    Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.1181 Ratings
    Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of BQE CORE and QuickBooks Online
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    QuickBooks Online
    8.0
    217 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Dashboards00 Ratings8.1204 Ratings
    Standard reports00 Ratings8.3211 Ratings
    Custom reports00 Ratings7.7195 Ratings
    General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
    Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of BQE CORE and QuickBooks Online
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    QuickBooks Online
    7.8
    234 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Accounts payable00 Ratings8.6200 Ratings
    Accounts receivable00 Ratings8.6217 Ratings
    Cash management00 Ratings7.9198 Ratings
    Bank reconciliation00 Ratings9.0223 Ratings
    Expense management00 Ratings8.2206 Ratings
    Time tracking00 Ratings6.998 Ratings
    Fixed asset management00 Ratings7.798 Ratings
    Multi-currency support00 Ratings7.549 Ratings
    Multi-division support00 Ratings7.180 Ratings
    Regulations compliance00 Ratings7.979 Ratings
    Electronic tax filing00 Ratings8.0118 Ratings
    Self-service portal00 Ratings7.3126 Ratings
    Global Financial Support00 Ratings6.541 Ratings
    Primary and Secondary Ledgers00 Ratings7.972 Ratings
    Intercompany Accounting00 Ratings7.672 Ratings
    Localizations00 Ratings7.855 Ratings
    Journals and Reconciliations00 Ratings8.5146 Ratings
    Enterprise Accounting00 Ratings7.062 Ratings
    Configurable Accounting00 Ratings7.789 Ratings
    Centralized Rules Framework00 Ratings7.560 Ratings
    Standardized Processes00 Ratings8.6108 Ratings
    Inventory Management
    Comparison of Inventory Management features of BQE CORE and QuickBooks Online
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    QuickBooks Online
    6.8
    90 Ratings
    7% below category average
    Inventory tracking00 Ratings6.685 Ratings
    Automatic reordering00 Ratings6.947 Ratings
    Location management00 Ratings7.254 Ratings
    Manufacturing module00 Ratings6.537 Ratings
    Order Management
    Comparison of Order Management features of BQE CORE and QuickBooks Online
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    QuickBooks Online
    7.7
    144 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Pricing00 Ratings7.991 Ratings
    Order entry00 Ratings7.787 Ratings
    Credit card processing00 Ratings8.3111 Ratings
    Cost of goods sold00 Ratings8.0110 Ratings
    Order Orchestration00 Ratings7.347 Ratings
    End-to-end order visibility00 Ratings7.750 Ratings
    Order exception Resolution00 Ratings7.443 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    BQE COREQuickBooks Online
    Small Businesses
    Autotask PSA
    Score7.7 out of 10
    QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
    Score4.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Workday Professional Services Automation
    Score8.2 out of 10
    MYOB
    Score8.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Planview AdaptiveWork
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Microsoft Dynamics GP
    Score5.3 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    BQE COREQuickBooks Online
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (167 ratings)
    8.3
    (252 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (8 ratings)
    9.6
    (27 ratings)
    Usability
    9.6
    (117 ratings)
    8.2
    (167 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    1.0
    (5 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.4
    (90 ratings)
    9.9
    (70 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    2.3
    (6 ratings)
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    1.0
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    CPA Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.4
    (18 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    1.3
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    2.0
    (3 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    5.0
    (3 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    5.0
    (3 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    BQE COREQuickBooks Online
    Likelihood to Recommend
    BQE Software Inc.
    I would recommend this for our industry: architecture, engineering, or construction. I would recommend this for any larger firm with many employees or high number of projects. I would particularly recommend this for a company with projects that have budget constraints and where time tracking and expense tracking is very important. I would not recommend this complicated software for a small firm with a small amount of income or number of projects.
    Read full review
    Intuit
    QBO is a great solution for small and midsize companies. If the goal is to record all transactions and pull reliable financial reports, QBO is a great option. QBO is also a great solution if most operations are run in a system like Ramp. It syncs well with systems like that and turns the data into something management can use to make decisions. QBO is great because so many people use it. It is easy to find training online, and many people have experience with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    BQE Software Inc.
    • Invoice Collections within Billing is a great tool because of the ability to take notes and track contact.
    • Invoices are professional looking and easy for our clients to understand the overall progress within each phase of their project.
    • Dashboards are the best tool EVER!
    • The Contact List feature within Clients setup is the perfect way to track multiple project managers within a large company that also has multiple contracts with us.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Intuit
    • Workflows for accounts payable invoice review are terrific.
    • Bill payment allows you to pay vendors online via ACH or check without having to write a physical check, which reduces admin time.
    • The cloud based login lends well to a remote or hybrid work environment for staff.
    • QuickBooks Online allows you to pre-configure vendors' general ledger expense accounts. This helps with general ledger coding accuracy and consistency.
    • QuickBooks Online integrates with Rippling HRIS, Coast, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, etc., which lends well to an efficient month-end closing and reduced administrative time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    BQE Software Inc.
    • Customizable Reporting
    • Linking Project to Payment all together
    • Assigning contacts to particular roles - such as Invoicing, Contracts, etc.
    • Accounting Functionality - they are basically a project management accounting software, so in my opinion, they could learn some things from other accounting software such as QuickBooks etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Intuit
    • I dislike that the online bill pay option through QuickBooks is required for their invoicing.
    • The auto-fill portion of the customer setup, specifically the company name, is listed, but it also auto-fills in the name portion, which is inconvenient and time-consuming to remove.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    BQE Software Inc.
    We have been using Core for a few years now, and honestly started to look at other software systems to see what was out there. What we chose was a nightmare for migration so we never left Core. Now we have added invoicing and payments from Core instead of double entry with QBO. Still only a few cycles in but looks like it will be up to speed soon and working smoothly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Intuit
    It like the product 'right out of the box' and I trust Intuit will continually improve it over the years based on my experience with their desktop products. The large providers of Apps makes customizing the entire package relatively easy and seamless for a wide variety of business types.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    BQE Software Inc.
    The foundation is awesome, like I have said before, however the house being built on it, the educational resources being provided to us (more of sales pitches that don't work), and flexible workflow opportunities, is making us look elsewhere for how much we will be spending on per user. It's crazy to think how flexible they are not when it comes to user settings. Lack of integration with other sources is awful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Intuit
    Beyond being overkill for a small org's needs, QBO is constantly stealing screen real estate and attention by hammering users for account upgrades, connecting to one of their approved consultants or buying add-ons. The idea of using a simple configurable bookeeping and light accounting interface is completely missing. At the very least, we should be able to hide functions like inventory that we will never use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    BQE Software Inc.
    I can only remember a couple of times in 4 years that Core has been unavailable.
    Read full review
    Intuit
    We have rarely had outages in the last 10 years. I can only recall 2 times in the last 10 years where we were not able to access our client files.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    BQE Software Inc.
    This is one area that does need some improvement. It can be slow at time, so we had our IT look at it from our side and we had no issues, so it has to be some slowness on their side.
    Read full review
    Intuit
    Everything process has its bugs lately with the new interface. Nothing has worked smoothly since this all began last month.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    BQE Software Inc.
    As a new employee and CORE user, I talk to support on a weekly basis. I have never had to wait for more than 3 min to get connect with a support rep, and all my questions have been answered. The support representatives are polite and eager to help no matter how simple your question is.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Intuit
    In my experience, most representatives keep me on the phone for hours, literally, for a single issue and then usually cannot resolve it satisfactorily. I have 10 open cases that need resolution and, in my experience, there has been NO follow-up communication on any of them.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    BQE Software Inc.
    Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
    Read full review
    Intuit
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    BQE Software Inc.
    It does take some time to understand the options and to find the best invoice template.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Intuit
    The person in charge of QB needs to be very accurate with record keeping and is recommended to stay on top of tasks. The biggest issue we have is reconciliation, and those issues occur only when too much time has occurred between reconciliations
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    BQE Software Inc.
    Deltek Vision is far more advanced, more encompassing and offers more flexibility with what you want to do. However, it's also quite difficult to use, whereas BQE CORE is intuitive and user friendly. The trade off is worth it in some arenas but overall it's not suited for a larger fast paced company. Great for smaller companies.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Intuit
    As a freelance bookkeeper, the Desktop version of QuickBooks Online doesn't allow for ease of access from any device. Having to be on a computer with the software downloaded creates additional work to gain access to all required filings etc. Also, I personally find the linking functionality on the Online version to be much more streamlined and user friendly.
    Read full review
    Scalability
    BQE Software Inc.
    This software works on a small and large scale.
    Read full review
    Intuit
    As we have grown along our professional path, we have also expanded our use of QB. The scalability is easy and features seem to be waiting for you until you need them. We have increased profits by over 10x from our first year in business to the current and have yet to find a reason to look elsewhere
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    BQE Software Inc.
    • Quick setup of new tasks under a parent project, with immediate hourly billing to it.
    • Monitoring of details of non-chargeable efforts in appropriate detail
    • Validation of hourly cost, billing cost, benefit cost, profitability by person and role
    • Company tracking of write-off's included in corporate and project reporting, no data is "lost"
    • Can track excessive work time as +PTO in lieu of pay for use as future vacation
    Read full review
    Intuit
    • QuickBooks has given us a useful portal by which to get an overview of our financials.
    • QuickBooks has given us a relatively easy way to send out invoices quickly and efficiently.
    • Due to the customization limitations on QuickBooks, we've had to get creative in third-party implementations to better represent our brand and to track financials.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    BQE CORE Screenshots

    Screenshot of Core powered by BQE SoftwareScreenshot of BQE CORE Project Dashboard ViewScreenshot of BQE CORE 360* Firm Performance ViewScreenshot of BQE CORE Reporting & AnalyticsScreenshot of BQE CORE Project Time EntryScreenshot of BQE CORE Project Expense Tracking

    QuickBooks Online Screenshots

    Screenshot of the accounting and bank transactions interfaceScreenshot of an overview of the accounting inventoryScreenshot of book marksScreenshot of the business tax overviewScreenshot of the customer hubScreenshot of the dashboard